Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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415. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of restoring the Gaeltacht and island allowances paid to school teachers; if proposals exist to address the pay disparity for those who commenced employment since January 2011; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48225/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department implemented the outcome of the public service-wide review of allowances and premium payments (September 2012) by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform which means that many allowances, including this one, were no longer payable to “new entrant” Teachers.

Circular 0008/2013 outlines the effect of this review on teachers. In common with a number of job-role based allowances, sanction for payment to new beneficiaries of the Gaeltacht allowance was withdrawn from 1^stFebruary 2012 under the terms of the Circular. Furthermore, if a teacher was eligible for receipt of the allowance prior to 1^stFebruary 2012 and subsequently left that job role on or after 1^stFebruary 2012 on a voluntary basis, their entitlement to the allowance ceases from the date of the move and they cannot re-gain entitlement.

Additional amendments to Teacher Terms and Conditions, including pay and allowances, can only be achieved through engagement and collective bargaining agreements between the Government and the public service unions. Over the course of recent collective agreements amendments have been agreed including that “new entrant” teachers had the equivalent of an honours primary degree allowance integrated into their salary scale.

Any further amendments to alter the allowances paid to teachers, whether “new entrant” or not, give rise to significant cost issues and should, as mentioned, be part of engagement and collective agreements between Unions and Government. Any review of the eligibility criteria for qualification allowances can occur only under that process and any such proposals would need to be considered in detail by the Department should the relevant unions seek to engage on this.